OUR BIBLE BAND

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 13, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 40.

Schedule for Week Ending October 23

Day	Date	Morning	Evening
Su.	Oct. 17	Isa. 50, 51, 52	1 Thess. 5
Mo.	" 18	" 53, 54, 55	2 Thess. 1
Tu.	" 19	" 56, 57, 58	" 2
We.	" 20	" 59, 60, 61	" 3
Th.	" 21	" 62, 63, 64	1 Tim. 1
Fr.	" 22	" 65, 66	" 2
Sa.	" 23	Jer. 1, 2	" 3

Suggestive Notes

Our Old Testament lessons conclude Isaiah, beginning at the 50th chapter, and include also the first two chapters of Jeremiah. Very rich and full indeed are the prophecies of Isaiah, oftentimes noting events in the prophet’s own day, but ever and again pointing forward to the times of our Lord and the glorious triumph of God’s children in the end of the Christian age.

Jeremiah is a later prophet than Isaiah, prophesying in the closing days of Israel, before the Babylonian captivity. His prophecies begin with Josiah and end with Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, who was carried away into Babylon. The first chapter is a graphic account of how God called him—a very young man. Jeremiah does not take kindly to the honor; calls himself a child, and tells God that he is not able to go; and yet the Lord encourages him with the assurance that He would be with him, and that by the very words which he would speak, nations would be plucked up and broken down, or builded and planted. He set before the prophet a very hard task. There would be plenty to dismay him, but he must not be dismayed. He was to go out and do his work before a rebellious and gainsaying people, and stand as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and brazen walls. They would fight against him and he would suffer, but they would not be able to prevail. Then begin the declarations of the prophet concerning the awful backsliding of Judah.

Our New Testament lessons begin with 1 Thessalonians 5, and close with 1 Timothy 3. The fifth chapter of 1 Thessalonians contains splendid instruction for the generation of God’s children who are looking for His coming. The second epistle was written to correct a wrong idea that the brethren at Thessalonia had obtained from the first epistle; namely, that the Lord was coming in their day. The apostle plainly tells them that that is not the case, nor must they so understand what he has written; for the Lord would not come until the great apostasy had been manifested and the man of sin revealed in the very church itself, and that condition of things would continue until the Lord came the second time, when the glory of His presence would destroy apostasy. The only hope of salvation was the love of the truth of God.

The epistle to Timothy consists of a personal letter to Paul’s own disciple, the son of a faithful Jewish mother, and through him to ministers of God in all the centuries that follow. It was written about the year A.D. 64, and is full of necessary instruction to the Gospel laborer, and also contains prophetic warnings of the evils which the church must meet.